11 ms·

TV maker Vizio may finally get paid after beating 17th patent troll

181 points by nkurz 12y ago

dikaiosune 12y ago
It's really too bad that it's so difficult to recoup these costs, especially in patent cases. It would be quite the disincentive to NPEs if they had to make a double-or-nothing bet every time they litigated over a patent they didn't actually use. That is to say nothing of the insanity of US patents and the concomitant trolls, but it would be a small change for the good if the NPEs/trolls had to pay fees if they lost.
- monochromatic 12y ago
  Maybe the U.S. should switch to loser-pays in general, but I don't think it makes sense to make patent litigation a special case.
  - michaelt 12y ago
    If you have loser-pays without spending caps, a big corporation can scare off small litigants by using expensive, inefficient law firms so a loss would be hugely expensive. If you were a minimum-wage worker injured by unsafe working conditions at a $BIGCORP warehouse, would you sue if you knew you'd have to pay a million dollars if you lost, because they have ten $1000-an-hour lawyers doing photocopying and filing, and there was a 1% chance you'd lose due to random chance? What you really need is German style fixed fee litigation; neither party should have to pay more than $5,000 in fees of any type. After all, if the courts can't figure out whether a patent is valid and infringed upon for $5,000 how is anyone supposed to?
    - will_brown 12y ago
      FYI even under the current system where the statute or a contract provides the the winner gets their fees paid by the loser (generally called prevailing party fees), the fees must be "proven" to be "reasonable". So a "inefficient" law firm does not simply say my fees are $x and they get paid, the Court holds a hearing in which other lawyers who are certified as experts on fees come in an testify regarding what a reasonable fee would be with the type of case, the lawyer(s) experience, the number of hours, ect... Your other point is well taken and the potential to be liable for the other sides fees is a deterrent, but that is the purpose of prevailing party fees, to encourage both sides to resolve the dispute without litigation. To some degree they also permit the little guy to get representation when otherwise they could not afford an attorney.
      - michaelt 12y ago
        under the current system [...] the fees must be "proven" to be "reasonable" According to [1] in 2013 the median cost of litigating a patent with less than $1,000,000 at stake was $700,000. Seems to me unreasonably high costs are already the industry standard. [1] http://dlj.law.duke.edu/2014/04/what-patent-attorney-fee-awards-really-look-like/ http://dlj.law.duke.edu/2014/04/what-patent-attorney-fee-awa...
- ploxiln 12y ago
  I just wish the court system was faster and less expensive. It would be fine if you paid a lawyer for a day or two of preparation, walked into the court room about a month after the case was officially brought, and had the stupid patent suits thrown out after a couple of hours in there. "Wow that's a fancy lawyer you brought. Too bad this patent is clearly bullshit. NEXT" EDIT: also, cheers to Vizio and NewEgg, for never settling
  - dikaiosune 12y ago
    I agree, although if we continue a thread of trying to identify common sense replacements for expensive and convoluted elements of our legal system, we'll be here quite a while.
    - spacemanmatt 12y ago
      Yup. If we could solve it in a comment venue, Slashdot woulda been nominated King-God-Emperor decades ago.
  - Lorento 12y ago
    A small part of the problem is non-lawyers not being allowed to offer legal advice. So for trivial cases, you get people paying thousands for a lawyer to tell them what stackexchange would have done for free in any other field.
    - MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
      Its the same in Germany. I guess thats what you get for having lawyers as politicians.
      - throwawaykf05 12y ago
        My understanding about patent cases in Germany, though, is that they are almost wholly decided by technical judges. This removes the costs and uncertainty of having a lay jury making decisions about things they cannot hope to understand.
- enjo 12y ago
  It would seem ideal if we could come up with a system in which your activity in court would lead to additional liability when you lose. In other words: the more you sue the more you will find yourself culpable for fees. The little guy who files one or two claims? He's fine. The trolls? Those guys pay.
  - eru 12y ago
    Each shell corporation only needs to bring one suit.
- enjo 12y ago
  It would seem ideal if we could come up with a system in which your activity in court would lead to additional liability when you lose. In other words: the more you sue the more you will find yourself culpable for fees. The little guy who files one or two claims? He's fine. The trolls? Those guys pay.
markhahn 12y ago
and they do a good job on products - well worth prefering their stuff...
linuxhansl 12y ago
The only way out is "loser pays, always, period". Don't have a strong case with risk of losing? Don't go to court! Have no money but a very strong case? Good. Go to court, you'll get your cost back if/when you win. That alone would end many of the - shall we say - speculative lawsuits.
- Kaizyn 12y ago
  What about cases where an individual or small business has been wronged by a big corporation? Then Big Corp. can simply intimidate them into not going to court because of the risk of losing and having to pay the legal fees.
- throwawaykf05 12y ago
  This trivializes the complexities and uncertainties involved in many lawsuits. I know someone who was a juror on a case where the entire jury agreed that real financial harm was done to the plaintiff, but could not return a verdict awarding any damages because of how certain business relations were structured and how the relevant laws applied to them.
  - mullingitover 12y ago
    As a juror, you're free to return any verdict you like. Here's the list of juries who suffered consequences for returning the wrong verdict:
    - themartorana 12y ago
      I read this and wondered it if we're true so I did minimal research. It is, but only if you believe the verdict you are returning to be true. Which is a small but important detail. "Because of the importance of preventing undue influence on a jury, jury tampering (like witness tampering) is a serious crime, whether attempted through bribery, threat of violence, or other means. Jurors themselves can also be held liable if they deliberately compromise their impartiality." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury
    - 12y ago
throwawaykf05 12y ago
The article says Pragmatus is a shell of Intellectual Ventures, and assumes so because it acquired its patents from IV. Being familiar with how shells are used by patent assertion entities, I highly doubt that is the case. For one, these sort of shell companies don't bother with websites: http://www.pragmatus.com/ http://www.pragmatus.com/
- tluyben2 12y ago
  They got a special mention https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bxcc3SM_KA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bxcc3SM_KA so they must have a website! Good episode by the way.
  - throwawaykf05 12y ago
    While that was entertaining and accurate at a high level, John Oliver repeats the same mistakes other media outlets make regarding the finer points of this issue: 1. He references the roundly debunked "Patent Trolls cost X trillion dollars" study and accepts it as fact. 2. He calls ED Texas "plaintiff friendly", which it hasn't been for a while (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1597919 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1597919) - these days it's popular because of other factors. 3. He shows a video clip of that M-CAM guy, who's famous for claiming there's a "patent on toast" (there's no such thing) in that NPR episode on patent trolls. Which, BTW, had journalism worse than this clip. M-CAM is a laughingstock of the IP licensing world as they appear to have no idea how patents really work. 4. The whole "trial lawyers killed patent reform" thing is a red herring if you just stop a second to think about it. As Oliver himself says a few minutes earlier, the whole patent troll business model is avoiding trials by settling for less than the cost of a lawsuit. In fact 97% of patent lawsuits, patent troll or otherwise, settle without trial. Statistically, trial lawyers have very little skin in the game. I don't know what really killed this patent reform bill (my guess is the pharma lobby), but I'm really curious why people decided to blame the trial lawyers.
source99 12y ago
Why is it typically so difficult to recoup attorney's fees? Seems like it should be more common but I guess it's not.
- rhino369 12y ago
  Because the default in the US is for everyone to pay their own way. It is so that poor can access the legal system. Otherwise only people with big pockets could engage in litigation.
  - c0ur7n3y 12y ago
    The poor can access the legal system?
    - rhino369 12y ago
      Some would argue too much access. Contingency payment means a lot attorneys troll for clients to sue anyone with money.
tomohawk 12y ago
Why not require companies pursuing claims such as this to put money in escrow, up front, if they cannot concretely show that the company behind the suit has sufficient assets? If the company pursuing the claim has no assets, then there is little chance of accountability. When you're sued, you often have to put aside money to cover the potential cost due to losing. So, this seems reasonable.
themartorana 12y ago
Between Vizio fighting the good fight and Samsung 1984-ing my living room conversations, I might start buying Vizio.
- cbhl 12y ago
  FWIW, my Vizio TV applies firmware updates without asking me first (and tells me about it on next boot), and their ToS is similarly liberal in what they might collect: "including but not limited to the identity of your broadcast, cable, or satellite television provider, the television programs and commercials you view".
  - themartorana 12y ago
    Sigh.
  - aorloff 12y ago
    Just don't give your TV an internet connection to report that data then.
    - psykovsky 12y ago
      Or proxy the connection, blocking the tracking/spying requests.
- themartorana 12y ago
  Down voted? Really? It's no wonder there are so many throw-away accounts these days.
- themartorana 12y ago
  Down voted? Really? It's no wonder there are so many throw-away accounts these days.
jcoffland 12y ago
The patent system is bankrupt of value. It needs nothing less than a complete gutting. The amount of resources wasted by legitimate companies on patents is atrocious.
hunterloftis 12y ago
US District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer published an opinion (PDF) detailing Oplus' "overly aggressive" and "uncooperative" style of litigation that was "outside the bounds of professional behavior." "At each step of the case, Vizio's credibility increased while Oplus gathered rope to hang itself," she wrote. Yet Pfaelzer denied Vizio legal fees. Now, the Federal Circuit has ruled (PDF) that Pfaelzer needs to reconsider that decision. Why, after such observations, would she deny Vizio legal fees?
- cle 12y ago
  She ruled that despite its behavior, Oplus' infringement allegations were not baseless and the case "followed an expected course of motion practice." As a result, "there is little reason to believe" that Vizio incurred significantly more litigation expenses than it would have otherwise, she said. "Oplus alleged sufficient facts to support its claims, gathered limited discovery, and lost on summary judgment, as it would have even without its misconduct," so attorneys' fees are not appropriate, the judge concluded. http://www.law360.com/articles/507269/vizio-denied-fees-troll-s-attys-slammed-for-misconduct http://www.law360.com/articles/507269/vizio-denied-fees-trol...
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  Because you are asking lawyer for less lawyer jobs.
aptwebapps 12y ago
If they prevail what are the odds that the troll can actually pay up?
- jmaygarden 12y ago
  If the can't pay, then they should assign their patents to Vizio. Really, the big law firm footing the bill on contingency is just as bad as the patent troll shell companies. They have an identical profit motive.
jeswin 12y ago
As in this case, and many others, Intellectual Ventures are the world's leading patent scumbags. One of the financial backers of the said company is Bill Gates; for all the good he purportedly does he really never believed in innovation (and has always hampered it -add).
- throwawaykf05 12y ago
  While IV may or may not be scumbags, I highly doubt they were involved here (as I said elsewhere: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9439950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9439950) Joe Mullin has notoriously poor understanding of patents (and I'm being charitable here, else I'd say he writes deliberately misleading language to pander to these types of crowds - his earlier work certainly betrays a more nuanced understanding of patents). Acquiring patents from somebody does not make you a shell company of theirs. The types of shell companies these entities use exist literally only on paper. Apart from their IP assets (which also exist only on paper), the only thing they have is a PO box, which they share with thousands others. They have no offices and no employees, let alone a website. On the topic of Bill Gates, he literally enabled the computer revolution. Without Microsoft, we'd be in an industry ruled by hardware makers, each a mini-Apple, with their own walled-garden ecosystems that would not interoperate with any others. It's just that he happened to disagree with the most popular religion around these parts that has earned him the ire he gets.
  - scott_karana 12y ago
    > Without Microsoft, we'd be in an industry ruled by hardware makers, each a mini-Apple, with their own walled-garden ecosystems that would not interoperate with any others Yes, IBM, the incumbent company with the largest market share, definitely tried to start a walled garden. /sarcasm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer
    - throwawaykf05 12y ago
      IBM actually came late to the PC (or microcomputers as they were known then) game, but the world it entered was full of walled gardens. However due to its lateness, it was forced to make architectural decisions that made future cloning easy. But you do know that the "IBM PC compatible" clones that made the PC a standard and commoditized hardware were reverse-engineered, right? As in, without IBM's approval? If IBM wanted a truly open system, people would not have had to reverse the BIOS. Microsoft's masterstroke was in foregoing exclusive licensing to IBM for lower royalties, and then making the same software available on all computers, thereby creating a standard platform that more software could be written for. The true value of a machine is in the software, and as more and more software is written, more and more value is created (which MS was perfectly positioned to capture a large chunk of), whereas hardware becomes fungible, causing hardware makers to enter a race to the bottom. This made hardware cheaper and more accessible, leading to even more software being created. I doubt any other company drove that shift as much as MS did. Certainly not IBM, which didn't even realize what was happening at the time, and if it did, it certainly would have fought its own commoditization.

181 points by nkurz 12y ago

It's really too bad that it's so difficult to recoup these costs, especially in patent cases. It would be quite the disincentive to NPEs if they had to make a double-or-nothing bet every time they litigated over a patent they didn't actually use. That is to say nothing of the insanity of US patents and the concomitant trolls, but it would be a small change for the good if the NPEs/trolls had to pay fees if they lost.

monochromatic 12y ago
Maybe the U.S. should switch to loser-pays in general, but I don't think it makes sense to make patent litigation a special case.
- michaelt 12y ago
  If you have loser-pays without spending caps, a big corporation can scare off small litigants by using expensive, inefficient law firms so a loss would be hugely expensive. If you were a minimum-wage worker injured by unsafe working conditions at a $BIGCORP warehouse, would you sue if you knew you'd have to pay a million dollars if you lost, because they have ten $1000-an-hour lawyers doing photocopying and filing, and there was a 1% chance you'd lose due to random chance? What you really need is German style fixed fee litigation; neither party should have to pay more than $5,000 in fees of any type. After all, if the courts can't figure out whether a patent is valid and infringed upon for $5,000 how is anyone supposed to?
  - will_brown 12y ago
    FYI even under the current system where the statute or a contract provides the the winner gets their fees paid by the loser (generally called prevailing party fees), the fees must be "proven" to be "reasonable". So a "inefficient" law firm does not simply say my fees are $x and they get paid, the Court holds a hearing in which other lawyers who are certified as experts on fees come in an testify regarding what a reasonable fee would be with the type of case, the lawyer(s) experience, the number of hours, ect... Your other point is well taken and the potential to be liable for the other sides fees is a deterrent, but that is the purpose of prevailing party fees, to encourage both sides to resolve the dispute without litigation. To some degree they also permit the little guy to get representation when otherwise they could not afford an attorney.
    - michaelt 12y ago
      under the current system [...] the fees must be "proven" to be "reasonable" According to [1] in 2013 the median cost of litigating a patent with less than $1,000,000 at stake was $700,000. Seems to me unreasonably high costs are already the industry standard. [1] http://dlj.law.duke.edu/2014/04/what-patent-attorney-fee-awards-really-look-like/ http://dlj.law.duke.edu/2014/04/what-patent-attorney-fee-awa...
ploxiln 12y ago
I just wish the court system was faster and less expensive. It would be fine if you paid a lawyer for a day or two of preparation, walked into the court room about a month after the case was officially brought, and had the stupid patent suits thrown out after a couple of hours in there. "Wow that's a fancy lawyer you brought. Too bad this patent is clearly bullshit. NEXT" EDIT: also, cheers to Vizio and NewEgg, for never settling
- dikaiosune 12y ago
  I agree, although if we continue a thread of trying to identify common sense replacements for expensive and convoluted elements of our legal system, we'll be here quite a while.
  - spacemanmatt 12y ago
    Yup. If we could solve it in a comment venue, Slashdot woulda been nominated King-God-Emperor decades ago.
- Lorento 12y ago
  A small part of the problem is non-lawyers not being allowed to offer legal advice. So for trivial cases, you get people paying thousands for a lawyer to tell them what stackexchange would have done for free in any other field.
  - MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
    Its the same in Germany. I guess thats what you get for having lawyers as politicians.
    - throwawaykf05 12y ago
      My understanding about patent cases in Germany, though, is that they are almost wholly decided by technical judges. This removes the costs and uncertainty of having a lay jury making decisions about things they cannot hope to understand.
enjo 12y ago
It would seem ideal if we could come up with a system in which your activity in court would lead to additional liability when you lose. In other words: the more you sue the more you will find yourself culpable for fees. The little guy who files one or two claims? He's fine. The trolls? Those guys pay.
- eru 12y ago
  Each shell corporation only needs to bring one suit.
enjo 12y ago
It would seem ideal if we could come up with a system in which your activity in court would lead to additional liability when you lose. In other words: the more you sue the more you will find yourself culpable for fees. The little guy who files one or two claims? He's fine. The trolls? Those guys pay.

markhahn 12y ago

and they do a good job on products - well worth prefering their stuff...

linuxhansl 12y ago

The only way out is "loser pays, always, period". Don't have a strong case with risk of losing? Don't go to court! Have no money but a very strong case? Good. Go to court, you'll get your cost back if/when you win. That alone would end many of the - shall we say - speculative lawsuits.

Kaizyn 12y ago
What about cases where an individual or small business has been wronged by a big corporation? Then Big Corp. can simply intimidate them into not going to court because of the risk of losing and having to pay the legal fees.
throwawaykf05 12y ago
This trivializes the complexities and uncertainties involved in many lawsuits. I know someone who was a juror on a case where the entire jury agreed that real financial harm was done to the plaintiff, but could not return a verdict awarding any damages because of how certain business relations were structured and how the relevant laws applied to them.
- mullingitover 12y ago
  As a juror, you're free to return any verdict you like. Here's the list of juries who suffered consequences for returning the wrong verdict:
  - themartorana 12y ago
    I read this and wondered it if we're true so I did minimal research. It is, but only if you believe the verdict you are returning to be true. Which is a small but important detail. "Because of the importance of preventing undue influence on a jury, jury tampering (like witness tampering) is a serious crime, whether attempted through bribery, threat of violence, or other means. Jurors themselves can also be held liable if they deliberately compromise their impartiality." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury
  - 12y ago

throwawaykf05 12y ago

The article says Pragmatus is a shell of Intellectual Ventures, and assumes so because it acquired its patents from IV. Being familiar with how shells are used by patent assertion entities, I highly doubt that is the case. For one, these sort of shell companies don't bother with websites: http://www.pragmatus.com/ http://www.pragmatus.com/

tluyben2 12y ago
They got a special mention https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bxcc3SM_KA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bxcc3SM_KA so they must have a website! Good episode by the way.
- throwawaykf05 12y ago
  While that was entertaining and accurate at a high level, John Oliver repeats the same mistakes other media outlets make regarding the finer points of this issue: 1. He references the roundly debunked "Patent Trolls cost X trillion dollars" study and accepts it as fact. 2. He calls ED Texas "plaintiff friendly", which it hasn't been for a while (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1597919 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1597919) - these days it's popular because of other factors. 3. He shows a video clip of that M-CAM guy, who's famous for claiming there's a "patent on toast" (there's no such thing) in that NPR episode on patent trolls. Which, BTW, had journalism worse than this clip. M-CAM is a laughingstock of the IP licensing world as they appear to have no idea how patents really work. 4. The whole "trial lawyers killed patent reform" thing is a red herring if you just stop a second to think about it. As Oliver himself says a few minutes earlier, the whole patent troll business model is avoiding trials by settling for less than the cost of a lawsuit. In fact 97% of patent lawsuits, patent troll or otherwise, settle without trial. Statistically, trial lawyers have very little skin in the game. I don't know what really killed this patent reform bill (my guess is the pharma lobby), but I'm really curious why people decided to blame the trial lawyers.

source99 12y ago

Why is it typically so difficult to recoup attorney's fees? Seems like it should be more common but I guess it's not.

rhino369 12y ago
Because the default in the US is for everyone to pay their own way. It is so that poor can access the legal system. Otherwise only people with big pockets could engage in litigation.
- c0ur7n3y 12y ago
  The poor can access the legal system?
  - rhino369 12y ago
    Some would argue too much access. Contingency payment means a lot attorneys troll for clients to sue anyone with money.

tomohawk 12y ago

Why not require companies pursuing claims such as this to put money in escrow, up front, if they cannot concretely show that the company behind the suit has sufficient assets? If the company pursuing the claim has no assets, then there is little chance of accountability. When you're sued, you often have to put aside money to cover the potential cost due to losing. So, this seems reasonable.

themartorana 12y ago

Between Vizio fighting the good fight and Samsung 1984-ing my living room conversations, I might start buying Vizio.

cbhl 12y ago
FWIW, my Vizio TV applies firmware updates without asking me first (and tells me about it on next boot), and their ToS is similarly liberal in what they might collect: "including but not limited to the identity of your broadcast, cable, or satellite television provider, the television programs and commercials you view".
- themartorana 12y ago
  Sigh.
- aorloff 12y ago
  Just don't give your TV an internet connection to report that data then.
  - psykovsky 12y ago
    Or proxy the connection, blocking the tracking/spying requests.
themartorana 12y ago
Down voted? Really? It's no wonder there are so many throw-away accounts these days.
themartorana 12y ago
Down voted? Really? It's no wonder there are so many throw-away accounts these days.

jcoffland 12y ago

The patent system is bankrupt of value. It needs nothing less than a complete gutting. The amount of resources wasted by legitimate companies on patents is atrocious.

hunterloftis 12y ago

US District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer published an opinion (PDF) detailing Oplus' "overly aggressive" and "uncooperative" style of litigation that was "outside the bounds of professional behavior." "At each step of the case, Vizio's credibility increased while Oplus gathered rope to hang itself," she wrote. Yet Pfaelzer denied Vizio legal fees. Now, the Federal Circuit has ruled (PDF) that Pfaelzer needs to reconsider that decision. Why, after such observations, would she deny Vizio legal fees?

cle 12y ago
She ruled that despite its behavior, Oplus' infringement allegations were not baseless and the case "followed an expected course of motion practice." As a result, "there is little reason to believe" that Vizio incurred significantly more litigation expenses than it would have otherwise, she said. "Oplus alleged sufficient facts to support its claims, gathered limited discovery, and lost on summary judgment, as it would have even without its misconduct," so attorneys' fees are not appropriate, the judge concluded. http://www.law360.com/articles/507269/vizio-denied-fees-troll-s-attys-slammed-for-misconduct http://www.law360.com/articles/507269/vizio-denied-fees-trol...
rasz_pl 12y ago
Because you are asking lawyer for less lawyer jobs.

aptwebapps 12y ago

If they prevail what are the odds that the troll can actually pay up?

jmaygarden 12y ago
If the can't pay, then they should assign their patents to Vizio. Really, the big law firm footing the bill on contingency is just as bad as the patent troll shell companies. They have an identical profit motive.

jeswin 12y ago

As in this case, and many others, Intellectual Ventures are the world's leading patent scumbags. One of the financial backers of the said company is Bill Gates; for all the good he purportedly does he really never believed in innovation (and has always hampered it -add).

throwawaykf05 12y ago
While IV may or may not be scumbags, I highly doubt they were involved here (as I said elsewhere: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9439950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9439950) Joe Mullin has notoriously poor understanding of patents (and I'm being charitable here, else I'd say he writes deliberately misleading language to pander to these types of crowds - his earlier work certainly betrays a more nuanced understanding of patents). Acquiring patents from somebody does not make you a shell company of theirs. The types of shell companies these entities use exist literally only on paper. Apart from their IP assets (which also exist only on paper), the only thing they have is a PO box, which they share with thousands others. They have no offices and no employees, let alone a website. On the topic of Bill Gates, he literally enabled the computer revolution. Without Microsoft, we'd be in an industry ruled by hardware makers, each a mini-Apple, with their own walled-garden ecosystems that would not interoperate with any others. It's just that he happened to disagree with the most popular religion around these parts that has earned him the ire he gets.
- scott_karana 12y ago
  > Without Microsoft, we'd be in an industry ruled by hardware makers, each a mini-Apple, with their own walled-garden ecosystems that would not interoperate with any others Yes, IBM, the incumbent company with the largest market share, definitely tried to start a walled garden. /sarcasm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer
  - throwawaykf05 12y ago
    IBM actually came late to the PC (or microcomputers as they were known then) game, but the world it entered was full of walled gardens. However due to its lateness, it was forced to make architectural decisions that made future cloning easy. But you do know that the "IBM PC compatible" clones that made the PC a standard and commoditized hardware were reverse-engineered, right? As in, without IBM's approval? If IBM wanted a truly open system, people would not have had to reverse the BIOS. Microsoft's masterstroke was in foregoing exclusive licensing to IBM for lower royalties, and then making the same software available on all computers, thereby creating a standard platform that more software could be written for. The true value of a machine is in the software, and as more and more software is written, more and more value is created (which MS was perfectly positioned to capture a large chunk of), whereas hardware becomes fungible, causing hardware makers to enter a race to the bottom. This made hardware cheaper and more accessible, leading to even more software being created. I doubt any other company drove that shift as much as MS did. Certainly not IBM, which didn't even realize what was happening at the time, and if it did, it certainly would have fought its own commoditization.